Noragami Aragoto Episode 4

“Wish”

Yato takes the fight to Bishamon as Kugaha’s plan goes all according to keikaku*.

Noragami continues at full tilt after Hiyori’s capture. As I feared, Hiyori seems to have little to no power to affect her situation, and now is relegated as a good excuse to deliver Kazuma’s backstory. I want so badly for Hiyori to be an important part of this show, but as long as she is relegated to this kind of damsel in distress I can only see her role becoming smaller and smaller. It reminds me of how one of the biggest reasons I took objection to ALO was its absolutely offensive treatment of Asuna. Her MMA abilities are more of a joke now than any kind of legitimate threat, and that is such a disappointment.

I’m a bit disappointed to learn the truth behind Yato and Bishamon’s history. While there’s still plenty of room for this to be true, I feel like it undermine’s Yato’s reputation as simply a cold-blooded killer. With this new revelation, Yato’s actions become more of an anti-hero, doing what needs to be done to save Bishamon even if that meant getting his hands dirty. He accepts this job to save her for no particular reason and without even accepting a reward. I also refuse to believe Bishamon didn’t understand what Yato was doing for her. It seems super convenient that she remembers him slaughtering her Regalia, but not the fact that they almost murdered her to begin with.Sure, we could still learn that Yato really was the monster I envisioned he was in my head, but it certainly softens that view.

Another bit of convenient storytelling will be how the show will try and explain Yukki surviving the cliffhanger at the end. This is another unfortunate consequence of that OVA being set after this plot arc, but obviously anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows Yukki won’t be gone for good. The fight was very heated, and very animated as well. It always seems like Bones saves all their money on this show to show off its battle scenes. Sure, I would like my characters to have faces when they aren’t very far into the background, but if it means we get good action like this, I can live with the consequences. However, it was this kind of weird boom/bust method of delivering this show (and admittedly some stiff competition) that held back the first season from really being a standout favorite. We’ll see if that continues to be the case as this arc wraps up.